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Sunday, May 31, 2015

South Sudan is primarily Christian, North Sudan is mostly hardline Muslim with the ruthless dictator Omar al-Bashir leading the country. Bashir wants the whole of Sudan to be Muslim and follow Sharia law, which is unfortunate for the Christians who live there.

As is the norm in Muslim-majority Sharia enforced countries, Christians are terribly persecuted. Muslims who convert to Christianity face the death penalty for apostasy. Now two Christian pastors from the south could lose their lives because of trumped up charges. The two were charged with spying, and their trial commenced this week,

Yat Michael Ruot and Peter Yein Reith, both Presbyterian pastors from the breakaway Christian nation of South Sudan, are being held by Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services on charges of undermining the constitution and espionage. Their supporters say their arrest and pending trial is just the latest effort by the militant Islamist government in Khartoum to stamp out Christianity.

[snip]

The pair also was charged with “inciting organized groups” and “offending Islamic beliefs,” which call for imprisonment.

The trial was set to begin Tuesday, but was postponed to May 31.

Ruot, who is from Juba, the capital city of South Sudan, was arrested Dec. 21 after he delivered a Sunday sermon in Omdurman, a Sudanese city across the Nile from Khartoum. Reith, who, like Ruot, is from the Presbyterian Evangelical Church, was arrested Jan. 11 when he was called in by security services and taken into custody. His supporters believe his arrest was prompted by a letter he wrote to the Office of Religious Affairs in Khartoum inquiring about Ruot.

You might remember this is the same country that sentenced a pregnant Christian woman, Meriam Ibrahim, to death. She was later released, but only after worldwide condemnation.

Typically, churches have been destroyed in that country, and new ones are not allowed to be built. Muslims in the West are fortunate they do not have to face what Christians are subjected to in Islamic countries.